The Bard's Tale series of games were originally created by Michael Cranford,
pictured at left. He has an elegant programmer's touch. You can't
see it in this picture of him, but you can see it in The Bard's
Tale series. Before launching The Bard's Tale phenomenon,
he had previously programmed the Apple version of the classic Donkey Kong arcade game, the Commodore 64 version of Super Zaxxon -- not to mention a Commodore 64 game entitled Maze Master which plays like a "beta" version of The Bard's Tale.

"...a role playing game set in a medieval fantasy world. If it could be called similar to any existing game, that game would be Wizardry, by Sir Tech Software. The object in the design of Shadow Snare has not been to copy Wizardry, but to come up with a role playing game of similar, though greatly increased, playability. The graphics, sound, and content would be ten times that of Wizardry, which is still a top seller, along with its varied scenarios and Ultima III. Unlike Wizardry, the town in Shadow Snare is depicted with a series of small (though highly detailed) graphic pictures, some of which are animated. The display is graphic, and the text output window scrolls messages up smoothly. All disk access will be quick and hardly noticeable, even on the Commodore 64 (which Wizardry is not even released on)."

As "Burger" Becky Heineman explains,

"Brian
Fargo was the main guy, he and Jay Patel, Troy Worrell and myself
were the first 4 people who were Interplay... In 1984, Mike Cranford
suggested that Interplay Productions should do a fantasy role
playing game (Wizardry was hot at the time). However the
game's name was 'Tales of the Unknown'... Mike never 'worked'
for Interplay. He was an independent contractor. he was able to
do this since he was an old high school buddy of Brian Fargo.
Cranford worked in an office at Interplay up until the completion
of Bard's Tale I. He did Bard's Tale II from his
home."

Many fans of
the Bard's Tale series don't realize that its creator has
a very strong Christian faith which is evident in the gamesfor
example, there are direct references to Jesus and his crucifixion
in The Bard's Tale, and all but one of the city names from the second
game are taken directly out of the New Testament of the Bible. (In
fact, the power of the Destiny Knight in The Bard's Tale II is
stated to be that of the Holy Spirit.) When I asked
Michael why he was not directly involved in The Bard's Tale III, he said that,

"The reason
I wasn't involved in BTIII is complicated. Part of it was that
I wanted to leave Interplay so that I could go back to school.
I was pretty burnt out on D&D game programming . . . and wanted
to pursue studies in philosophy and theology. I also thought I
didn't need Interplay at that point, and had a falling out with
Brian Fargo. It turned out to be a good decision spiritually,
though not financially!" (E-mail, 1998)

And he wasn't
kiddingafter leaving Interplay, Michael earned a bachelors
degree in philosophy from the University of California, a Master
of Divinity from Talbot School of Theology, and a Ph.D. in Religion
and Social Ethics from the University of Southern California with
a disertation focus on ethics and technology. He has taught both
graduate and undergraduate courses in ethics and theology, and has
publications in several New Testament journals and in scholarly
journals of ethics and contemporary postmodern culture.

Michael is
also founder and senior designer of the Irvine, California web site
design company, Ninth
Degree.
Not surprisingly, his very first Internet web design project was
a web site for Christian outreach called Sundoulos,
"the web's premier forum for discussions on theology, ethics,
and culture." (Now named OneSteadfast.)

Of course, many other talented folks were involved in the creation
of The Bard's Tale series; not surprisingly some of
them have gone on to have extremely successful careers. Just to
name a few:

Brian Fargo helped create maps for the first two games, and served as director on the third. He was CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors for Interplay (Interplay grew to make its IPO in June 1998 and listed assets of more than $65 million in the year 2000, employing over 400 people). In 2002, Brian Fargo left Interplay to start a new company, inXile Entertainment — their first project was a new game entitled “The Bard's Tale,” but it was an an irreverent console-style top-down action game, not a true sequel. In 2015, on the 30th anniversary of the release of The Bard's Tale, Fargo announced plans to crowd-fund a true sequel, The Bard's Tale IV. Follow him on Twitter.

Lawrence
Holland composed the music and programmed the music interface
for the first game. He went on to create the famous Star Wars:
X-Wing series of games for LucasArts, and founded his
own game company, Totally
Games, formed from the team which created the X-Wing games.

Where are they now? Where I could find them, I've put Wikipedia or other relevant links to the people behind The Bard's Tale games below. (If you would like to learn which other games these people worked on, the best way is to type their name into a search at MobyGames. It can also tell you who worked on the different platforms.)

Acknowledgements
from The Bard's Tale manual

Michael
Cranford wishes to acknowledge:
The
great illustrator David Lowery, for fantastic monster pictures,
city buildings and dungeon walls; my buddy Lawrence Holland, for
such great music; the devious Brian Fargo, for the treacherous
design of Harkyn's Castle and Mangar's worst two levels; Becky
Heineman, for data compression routines that allowed me to pack
so much graphics and animation; and the following play-testers
who helped this program be its very best: Caren Edelstein, Jay
Patel, Philip Ybarra, Ayman Adham, Carl Ybarra, Mike Easting.

Acknowledgements from
the Thief of Fate manual

ThanksI,
Becky Heineman, wish to acknowledge that Thief of Fate couldn't
have been done without the help and the long hours of work from
many people. Thanks to these people for helping me bring this
game to life: Brian Fargo for having the vision to let me begin
this project. Michael A. Stackpole for coming up with the basic
storyline, the maps and the text found throughout the game. Todd
J. Camasta, whose artistic talent knows no bounds. Kurt Heiden
who spent many days composing the music that the famous Bards
now sing. Bruce Schlickbernd for composing additional text, for
the songs sung in the Bard's Halls, and also for finding all those
nasty little bugs that seem to create themselves. Dave Albert,
Chris Wilson, James Bailey, and Jennifer King for playing the
game until their fingers fell off... These people helped make
Thief of Fate into a masterpiece of role- playing fantasy. I hope
you will enjoy our work.